


Bespoke

by Siobhan_Schuyler



Category: White Collar
Genre: Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-07-31
Updated: 2012-08-10
Packaged: 2017-11-11 03:14:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/473888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siobhan_Schuyler/pseuds/Siobhan_Schuyler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He's yours by definition. And you best start calling 'it' <i>he</i> before things get awkward. He starts on Monday."</p><p>A robot!Neal AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Peter hates paperwork.

Well, that's a lie. Nobody _loves_ paperwork, but Peter doesn't really mind it. It kind of zens him out, which is especially welcome when a case is stressing him out, and besides he likes it when things are ordered and above-board. Endless requisitions and leave requests and field reports are not his favorite thing to do on a Friday, but it could be worse. Like chasing bad guys who will inevitably make him late for dinner and a well-deserved night in with your wife. So paperwork, on this Friday afternoon, is not altogether unwelcome.

Usually.

Today, Peter wishes he was out chasing the baddest of bad guys, even in the ninety-degree weather and these new shoes that pinch a little, even if most cases his team is working on right now are either cold or tedious. He'd do it. He'd do anything not to be sitting at his desk, reluctantly poring over FBI staffing form 2278-1 for the addition of a certain Neal Caffrey, employee 4787790, to the White Collar Crime Unit.

Mostly because they’re using the term "employee" very loosely.

"Why me," Peter gripes again, scribbling his signature next to a little neon flag.

Hughes chuckles, sitting across from him steepling his fingers animatedly, the way he does when he's pleased about something. "Because they're not going to risk running this pilot program with something like Violent Crime. If Caffrey ends up solving a couple mortgage frauds or catch a few art forgers, the project might be deemed workable enough to expand to more high-profile units."

Peter likes his little low-profile unit. Partly because it isn't usually subjected to crap like this.

"Can we stop calling it Caffrey or Neal or even employee number 4787790 and stick to calling it CCSU-214, model..." He looks at the paper in front of him. "... WC1?"

"White Collar One," Hughes says, letting the front legs of Peter's guest chair tip back to the carpet. "He's yours by definition. And you best start calling 'it' _he_ before things get awkward. He starts on Monday."

"I couldn't care less if I make a robot awkward, Reese," Peter says pointedly.

"Play nice," Hughes warns, standing. He taps a finger on the thick binder he'd dropped on Peter's desk earlier. "Read up on this tonight. He's pretty self-sufficient and you shouldn't have to do anything to or with him that you wouldn't have to do with a regular agent, but wouldn't hurt to read the ethical and financial or even the maintenance stuff. It's pretty neat."

Peter looks at him in disbelief. He doesn't think he's ever heard Hughes say the word _neat._ "Why are you so pleased about your unit getting used as a guinea pig?"

"A guinea pig for a _robot program_ ," Hughes says gleefully, like that answers Peter’s question. But Hughes loves gadgets; it figures that he'd be psyched about this. "Agent Burke, this thing's been programmed to think like a white collar criminal. If your case resolution doesn't hit at least ninety percent within a month, feel free to throw this back in my face."

*

Peter avoids the basement of Federal Plaza like the plague. Records is here, and Records folks are a little bit crazy around the eyes. There’s Evidence too, and Mechanical, and the fleet desk, all home to assorted flavors of FBI's Most Unwanted, who apparently don't need daylight to exist. It isn't exactly swinging light bulbs and dark corners down here, but even brightly-lit hallways and shiny floors don't make the slightly claustrophobic basement level fun to visit on a Monday morning.

Just past the elevator bank, Peter stands in front of the floor listing with one hand propped up on his hip above his badge, eyes going down the list until he gets to the name given to him by Hughes.

_M. Haversham - Room B1241_

He sighs and starts down the hallway marked B, keeping an eye on the ascending numbers on the doors he passes. He turns a corner and finds 1241, a non-descript gray metal door labeled _Robotics_. Peter purses his lips and knocks.

An undecipherable shout comes from within. Peter, unsure whether that was a ‘come in’ or not, is about to let himself in when the door swings inward, held open by an attractive young man in a smart suit.

“Morning,” the man says with a winning smile and eyes that could only be described as _sparkling_. The guy also touches the tip of the old fashioned hat perched on top of his head, and somehow the motion comes off as gentlemanly rather than… well, crazy.

“Hey,” Peter manages, recovering from having been momentarily thrown off guard. “Agent Haversham?”

“In here!” comes the same slightly shrill voice as before, and a shorter bald man in a lab coat scurries over. The younger agent steps back easily and lets Haversham pull Peter in, closing the door behind them. “Sorry, classified work,” he mutters, leading Peter further into his… office. Lab. Workshop. Mess. Peter’s not sure what to call it.

“Right,” Peter says, distracted, eyeing the mess of components and electronics littering the room. He’s dimly aware of Haversham’s guest eyeing him, standing a respectful distance back with his hands in his pockets and that killer smile still at attention. He has, like, a million very white teeth and Peter resolutely returns his gaze to Haversham, who fits more closely Peter’s idea of a robotics nerd.

“Special Agent Peter Burke. I’m here to sign off on CCSU-214-WC1. Neal Caffrey,” he adds, resigned.

“Yes! He’s ready and eager. Just sign here,” Haversham says, snatching a clipboard from the top of a mess of papers and thrusting it at Peter. Peter grabs the chewed-up ballpoint Haversham hands him and doodles a loose approximation of his initials at the bottom of yet another goddamn form.

“You’re late,” the other agent comments mildly behind him as Peter signs, and it sounds like it was aiming for non-committal and missed by about a mile.

Peter turns to him. “Look, pal, this isn’t exactly my idea of a fun Monday morning, so how about we just get this done so I can get back to doing my actual job.”

The young man nods, smile back at full wattage under the rakish angle of his hat. “Agreed.” He slips a hand out of its pocket and thrusts it at Peter, palm open. “Neal Caffrey, pleased to meet you.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The ability to lie is integral to humanity, and I did program you a person.”
> 
> “You programmed me a _tool_ ,” Peter corrects him.
> 
> “Ouch,” Neal chuckles.

Peter has had years of training in being unflappable, and he’s not proud to admit he spends several seconds staring at Neal in disbelief before shaking the hand proffered to him. It feels warm and strong and pliant, just like any hand.

Haversham speaks up before Peter has the chance to further embarrass himself. “Neal’s good to go, and I assume you’ve done your homework, so I just need to brief you on a couple things he might creatively embellish on if you ask him yourself.” 

Peter doesn't miss the pointed look Haversham throws at Neal and the resulting blatantly false beatific look on Neal’s face. Peter takes it this has been a point of contention between them.

Wait.

He turns back to Haversham. “What do you mean, embellish? You programmed him to _lie_?”

Haversham smirks, sitting on a high stool like the caterpillar on his mushroom. “Well, not exactly. But the ability to lie is integral to humanity, and I did program you a person.”

“You programmed me a _tool_ ,” Peter corrects him.

“Ouch,” Neal chuckles.

“You be quiet,” Peter snaps, jabbing a finger at him. He can only deal with this if he tackles one demented aspect of it at a time, and Neal, with his flawless charm and his stupid pocket square, needs to shut up for a second so Peter can think.

“Years of research have gone into this prototype, Agent Burke,” Haversham says, clearly wounded also but taking it more personally than Neal appears to be. “But this isn’t rocket science: you need humanity to understand humanity. Just like you need knowledge of art to catch yourself an art thief.”

“Sure,” Peter allows begrudgingly. Neal ambles closer to stand next to Peter placidly, both hands back in his pockets and watching Haversham almost… fondly? Peter eyes him distrustfully. “So what separates him from the perps then?” Peter asks. Because the 346-page brief had managed to be both overly detailed and unhelpfully vague.

Haversham smirks and hops off his stool. “Conscience.”

Peter, unnerved, turns back to Neal tiredly. “You have a conscience?”

“So I’m told,” Neal says, shrugging. “But I took Mozzie’s muffin this morning and all I felt was mild surprise at how adequate it was.” After a pause he adds, “Your cafeteria sucks,” to clarify, like it explains away the bewildered look on Peter’s face.

Peter turns to Haversham again, choosing to be annoyed over the number of other feelings warring for top billing. “You programmed him to have opinions too?”

Haversham pauses in the middle of reshuffling the papers on his desk and sighs, like he’s more disappointed in Peter’s questions than anything else. “The quicker you catch on to this whole ‘humanity’ thing, Agent Burke, the quicker you can leave.”

The thought of leaving does appeal to Peter. He crosses his arms over his chest. “All right. Lay it on me.”

Haversham nods, pacified for the moment, and take his seat again, this time holding a document with _CCSU-214-WC1_ stamped on the cover sheet. Another manual? Jesus.

“First off, basic maintenance. Neal doesn’t need to drink or eat but he likes to, so a meal allowance has been included in his stipend. He also doesn’t need to sleep, but we do recommend periods of lowered activity once in a while in order for his charge to synch up properly. So he'll be staying at his desk at night, which the brass likes because it means more man-hours out of him."

"I'm supposed to chain him to his desk overnight? Isn't that a bit cruel?" Peter asks, uneasy.

Haversham's expression slowly turns into a smirk. "Weren't you just calling Neal a 'tool', Agent Burke? Do you take your fax machine home after hours too?"

"No," Peter mutters mutinously. Neal is trying but mostly failing to keep the amusement off his face, which is not the reaction Peter expected from someone who's just basically been compared to the office copier.

"All right, so." Haversham mercifully moves the conversation along, not bothering to hide his amusement either. "Having said all that, we've outfitted Neal with a state-of-the-art GPS tracker chip, which will provide you with his exact location at any time. You will have access to this data from your phone, laptop and desktop computers. I encourage you to keep a close eye on it, as Neal has the tendency to... wander." 

Peter pinches at his forehead, looking over at Neal tiredly. “Seriously?” 

Neal grins at him.

"Now to the good stuff," Haversham says, sounding like a kid on Christmas morning. “Neal can use most known technology, render and analyze any kind of art, speak over two hundred languages and dialects, decode any known type of cipher, impersonate thousands of different personae based on models sent to us by the profiling team, and profile like the best agents we got." 

Then Haversham's smug smirk turns a little embarrassed. 

"He should be able to operate most weapons and engage in hand to hand combat as well, but I’ll admit that the modules haven’t uploaded with as much success as I was hoping, so I've removed them for the time being since he's unlikely to need those skills much. I'll be working on rewriting them for his next system update.”

“You do that,” Peter mutters, snatching the owner’s manual from Haversham’s hands. He flips through it quickly, noticing chapters on troubleshooting, manual override, and – he shudders – dismantling. "We done here? I gotta show Neal his desk and the sixty-eight hundred cold cases he'll be taking a crack at."

Neal's smile does waver at that, his face falling comically. Peter smiles at him smugly and slaps him on the arm.

"Buck up, Caffrey. There's also a hot little coffee maker up there I think you'll want to meet."

Neal purses his lips at him, clearly unamused. "Ha. Robot humor, very funny."

Peter laughed and signs the release form in Haversham's hands with a flourish. This might not be so bad after all. 

 

Ten hours later, Peter shrugs into his suit jacket, grabs his phone and briefcase, and ambles out of his office to a dim, nearly empty bullpen. 

Neal is hunched over his desk (and how oddly excited he had been over having a _desk_ ) in the small pool of light from his lamp, poring over a thick case file with a few dozen color photos attached to it. Next to him is a three-foot high stack of files he’s already been through today, all of which are waiting to be reclassified from cold cases to solved ones as soon as Peter and his team do the legwork.

Peter only barely resists patting Neal on the head.

"Good job today, Caffrey," he says, stopping by his desk. Neal looks up and smiles, looking pleased. If robots have the ability to be pleased. 

"I'm about to crack this one too, I just need a few more hours."

He's gotta give it to Haversham: Neal is relentless. And highly efficient. Peter might keep him around after all. Like he has a choice. "Yeah, well, I'm headin' home."

"Big plans with Elizabeth?" Neal asks with too much interest, tapping a pencil on top of the page he was reading.

"Nah, it's Monday so we'll order some Thai, and I'm taking some files home so I--- Wait, how do you know about Elizabeth?" he suddenly bristles, hackles going up. 

Neal shrugs. "I got bored in Mozzie's lab yesterday. I read your file."

"What's my personnel file doing in Haversham's lab?" Peter grouses.

There's that beatific smile from earlier. Peter pinches the bridge of his nose again and sighs.

"I'm going home _to my wife_ , yes, and I expect you to be sitting right here when I walk in tomorrow morning. Capiche?"

Neal nods mutely, putting on the airs of what Peter is sure must be labeled _perfectly behaved school boy_ somewhere in his circuitry. Peter doesn’t believe it for a second.

"And I expect another foot to be added to this pile by morning," he adds, pointing at Neal's outbox stack.

"Yes sir," Neal says, flippantly serious. "Would you like to physically chain me to my desk with your handcuffs, just to make sure?"

"Don't tempt me," Peter warns. He wonders if Neal has a sass switch somewhere reachable. He'll have to talk to Haversham again, he thinks as he makes his way to the elevators.

"Have a good night, Peter!" he calls after him. "Give Satchmo a scratch for me!"

Peter groans, making a mental note to get his personnel file back from Robotics.


End file.
